In a major step towards quenching the thirst of 12.3 lakh acres of drought-prone and parched uplands, those uncovered under existing projects, in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar and Rangareddy districts, the first pump in Yellur-Narlapur pump-house of Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) is set to be switched on by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday.
It’s the first milestone in the execution of the project that sets in motion the process of making the 31 pumps operational in a phased manner. Project engineers, who have been racing against time along with the contract agencies to take the project into operational mode, say it has several unique features.
During a visit to the project sites on Friday, they explained that the first four stages of lifts which comprise 31 pumps and an additional three spare pumps of 145 megawatt each are the largest capacity pumps to be used in a lift irrigation project anywhere in the world. In the first stage, each pump would have the capacity to lift 3,000 cusecs water for a height of 104 metres to carry the Srisailam backwaters into Narlapur reservoir.
